NDCs 2012 Fiscal Policy Is Shallow And A Rehash Of Past Budgets

Minority Leader and Member of Parliament for Suame constituency, Hon Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, says the 2012 Budget Statement and Economic Policy presented in Parliament yesterday by the Finance Minister, Dr Kwabena Duffour, is lacking in depth and a rehash of previous budgets�. To him, government�s fiscal policy for next year which was themed: �Infrastructural Development for Accelerated Growth and Job Creation�, contains nothing new and is just a review of past budget statements that have been presented to the House in the last three years of the Mills-led NDC administration. Highlighting some achievements of the NDC government over the past year, the Finance Minister called on Ghanaians to look forward to seeing massive infrastructure development, job creation and sustained economic growth next year. "Madam Speaker, we promised Ghanaians a better Ghana and we have significantly delivered on this promise; we promised to remove schools under trees and we are very much on course; we promised to remove inequities in incomes through the single spine and we are very much on course; we promised to move the economy from fragility to robustness, yes we have; we promised to significantly expand the economy and we have; we promised to arrest inflation, yes we have�� he said But speaking in an interview on state-owned national television, GTV, moments after the Finance Minister�s presentation, the NPP Member scoffed at the achievements enumerated by government�s mouthpiece on financial affairs saying every first year economics student will attest to the fact that there was no new thing in the budget. ��it is worrying how the NDC has incorporated old things and presented it as a new policy�oil production from the petroleum has contributed to the increase in the fiscal space, boosting the country�s GDP to 13.6%...if the oil sector is disaggregated from the traditional source of invigorating the economy, you will see that the growth is less than in 2008,� he said.